Michael McCaul: Authorities missed suspect by a matter of minutes in LAX shooting

Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, said local authorities missed the suspect in the shooting at the Los Angeles International Airport last week by less than an hour in the rampage in which one Transportation Security Administration agent was killed.

Rep. Michael McCaul (AP photo)

“[The suspect’s] family in New Jersey had notified New Jersey local authorities, who then, in turn, notified the local Los Angeles Police Department, who had actually visited the suspect’s home the morning of the shooting and missed him by literally probably 45 minutes,” said McCaul, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.

The suspect, who was shot and arrested by police, is 23-year-old Paul Ciancia. McCaul said Ciancia left a suicide note and displayed signs of mental illness.

“The suicide note that I read talks a lot about killing TSA agents,” McCaul said. “He said, ‘If I just kill one, my mission is accomplished’ and unfortunately he did do that the other day.”

McCaul said Ciancia’s note also talked about was how easy it is to take a gun into an airport.

“It’s clearly one of these notes that reads ‘I’m going to go kill people’…with the idea that he’s going to die at the end of this,” McCaul said.

The slain TSA agent is the first to be killed in the line of duty, McCaul said.

It’s important that local authorities coordinate more with TSA in order to prevent incidents like this one, the congressman added.

“The coordination with the local police is key because, remember, TSA officers are not armed,” McCaul said.

McCaul noted the suspect’s family did the right thing in notifying police about his mental illness and suicidal tendencies and that good intelligence is key in solving cases such as this one, but it seems the effort by Ciancia’s family came a bit too late.